Miriam wants garbage returned to Canada

The government’s agreeing to a request not to return to Canada an illegal shipment containing household and other wastes has set a dangerous precedent for other countries to dump their wastes in the Philippines, according to the chairman of the Senate committee on foreign relations.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago has filed Senate Resolution 1341 to express the sense of the Senate that the government should cite an international agreement to force Canada to take back mountains of garbage illegally exported to the Philippines.

Santiago said the Philippines can invoke the Basel Convention to make Canada responsible for some 50 container vans of wastes now sitting in Philippine ports.

“This issue goes beyond waste management and threatens our sovereignty,” she said.

“I am alarmed that the government seems willing to say that we are an international trash bin out of fear of ruffling Canada’s feathers,” she said.

Santiago rejected the view that Canada has no obligation to take the garbage back since the shipment was purely a commercial transaction between Ontario-based Chronic, Inc. and its Philippine counterpart Chronic Plastics.

“The arduousness of complaint or arbitration mechanisms before an international tribunal should not hinder the government from asserting that the export of wastes from Canada violates the Basel Convention,” she said.

Santiago said Article 9 (2) of the Basel Convention provides: “In case of a transboundary movement of hazardous wastes or other wastes deemed to be illegal traffic as the result of conduct on the part of the exporter or generator, the State of export shall ensure that the wastes in question are:

(a) taken back by the exporter or the generator or, if necessary, by itself into the State of export, or, if impracticable,

(b) are otherwise disposed of in accordance with the provisions of this Convention, within 30 days from the time the State of export has been informed about the illegal traffic or such other period of time as States concerned may agree. To this end the Parties concerned shall not oppose, hinder or prevent the return of those wastes to the State of export…”

The Basel Convention covers the garbage from Canada as Annex 2 explains that “other wastes” include those collected from households, she added.